"I have often seen the British soldier," says a French correspondent, "sharing his breakfast with starving Belgian refugees. In a corner of the big courtyard where the British troops are quartered, I saw a little girl of ten fast asleep on the straw. Two English troopers, men with grey hair and moustaches, had tenderly covered her up in a thick brown rug, and were watching over her as she slept. I went up and asked them how the child had come there. They told me as they were returning from the front after hard fighting they came upon the child. Her parents had been shot, and she was alone in the world. At that moment the child woke up, and, seeing a stranger talking to her friends, asked anxiously if he had come to take her away. 'I don't want to be taken away,' she cried; 'I want to stay here.' The stranger reassured her, and the little one, pacified, was soon fast asleep again."
No wonder that a British officer was able to write:
"The Belgians are delighted to see us. As we entered one town all the population turned out and cheered, and gave the men cigars and cigarettes. It was almost embarrassing riding in at the head of the column; it was almost like a Royal progress. It is very extraordinary the faith the Belgians have in the British Army. Directly they see any British troops they seem to think that all will go well."
Wyman & Sons Ltd., Printers, London and Reading